THE OUTLOOK

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 37, 7 November 1918, Page 4

THE OUTLOOK

DtraiNa the last week or two attention has been largely diverted from military events to tho prospects of peace, but if the Allies aro now ablo to look ahead in assured confidence of reaching their goal it is for no other reason than that Germany is in the grip of forces whose supremacy is every day becoming moro evident. It is a false reading of the situation which does not recognise that events on the field of battle are still capable of exerting an enormously import-ant influence on the peace settlement, and also that the Allied armies aro at present' striking with greater power and deadlier effect than ever before in tho war. _ In existing circumstances the Alließ are faced by an obvious temptation to relax their efforts—to wait for the enemy capitulation which seems to be inevitable, instead of striking with might and main to enforce it. No doubt the enemy counted upon this temptation and hoped that out of it conditions would arise which would enable him at, least to whittle down the essential conditions of a. just peace. How completely this hope has been disappointed the news of the last day or two bears witness. Instead of being allowed to' fall back comparatively unmolested while their garbed in sham trappings of democracy, bids for terms, the German armies are being subjected to a storm of attack which sets' new standards in war. As a correspondent truly observes to-day, it is a mistake to suppose that the Allies are only engaging the rearguards of an army retreating according to plan. The Allies are developing an attack so for-, raidable in its scope and power that it threatens the very existence of the Gorman armies, and these armies are literacy fighting for life. It is above all because matters are in this shape in the Western theatre that peace is coming near, though it counts, of course, for a good deal that if the Germans look beyond tho grim struggle that is now being waged they can see little else than new perils closing in upon them. Two things are implied in the mighty onslaught the Allied armies a-ro developing at a time when the enemy no doubt,hoped to bo retiring comparatively unmolested towards his own frontiers. One is that the-Allies .will consider nothing short of Germany's surrender, and the other that in delaying surrender Germany risks a worse fate. Equally plain evidence on these points is supplied in the terms of the armistice with Austria, now made public, and in statements by the British and French Prime Ministers. The terms imposed on-Austria obviously amount to unconditional surrender in all but name. She is to disarm, to open her territories to tho passage of Allied armies, and to make various. other concessions. As a, whole, the terms mean that Austria-Hungary places herself in the hands of the Allied nations. Meantime, Mr. Lloyd George has stated that Germany must apply to Marshal Foch if she wants an armistice, and M. Clbmenceau adds to this that the conditions of armistice for Germany are similar to ijhose granted Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria. Germany is left no _ room for misunderstanding. In spite of the fact that winter is approaching sho is being attackod in over-increasing power and with corresponding effect by the Allied armies in tho Western theatre; and the terms of the Austrian armistice mean that every facility for attack on Germany which possession of AustroHungarian territory and communications affords is made freely available to the Allies. At the same time Germany is informed in plain terms that she must submit as unreservedly as her allies have done if she wishes to escape the fate' whioh is otherwise in store. It seems unlikely that she will attempt much longer to struggle against the inevitable, but it would be base ingratitude to the Allied fighting forces on land and sea not to recognise that this promising situation is only mo.de possible by their firmhearted avoidance of the.temptation to more or less definitely relax their efforts on the assumption that victory in any case is assured. It is the best assurance of trumphant victory 1 that as tho prospect rapidly opens the Allied armies and tho men who speak for the Allied nations are giving conclusive proof of their determination to take nothing for granted until it is accomplished.